On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched what the world called a surprise attack on Iran. It was not. For those watching the board, every piece had been moving for months — Venezuela, Canada, Greenland, Cuba, Panama, Nigeria, and now Iran. This brief maps the full architecture, its internal logic, and what it means for energy markets, defence equities, critical minerals, and the tail risks that investors may be structurally underpricing. If the thesis holds, the board is larger than anyone is currently pricing
Archive | February, 2026
The Grand Chessboard : Iran Is the Centrepiece, but the Board Is Much Bigger.
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MIB: January PPI Beats, China Tariffs Escalate, Iran Risk Surges, and Dell Defies the Tech Rout
Hot PPI (+0.5%) ignites stagflation fears, sending Dow -521 pts and 10Y yield below 4% for first time in 4 months. Trump announces extra 10% China tariff effective March 4. S&P 500 logs worst February since March 2025 on AI-inflation-tariff triple threat. Gold surges to $5,200+ record as US evacuates Israel embassy staff on Iran war fears. Dell (DELL +16.64%) bucks the selloff with record $9B AI server quarter.
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MIB: AI Sentiment Reset, Gold at Record $5,200, and the $30B Warner Bros. Bidding War
NVDA fell 5.5% despite record Q4 revenue ($68.1B, +73% YoY) — AI trade set to a new standard. Gold hit an all-time record above $5,200 as US-Iran nuclear talks in Geneva approach Trump’s March 6 strike deadline. WBD board calls Paramount Skydance’s $31/share bid “superior” to Netflix, starting a 4-day bidding war. Dell surges 9% after hours on a $22B AI server backlog. Fed Vice Chair Bowman signals broad bank deregulation. Nasdaq -1.2%, Russell +0.5% — sharpest rotation in months.
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MIB: PCE Re-Accelerates, Consumer Confidence Craters, and Nvidia Defies the Macro
Nvidia reported Q4 EPS of $1.62 (est. $1.53) with revenue of $68.1B and guided Q1 to $78B — sending shares +6% after-hours on a near-record beat. Markets shrugged off Trump’s SOTU optimism as economists warned the SCOTUS tariff reversal won’t translate to lower consumer prices. December PCE Core re-accelerated to 3.0% YoY — the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge moving in the wrong direction and eliminating any realistic H1 rate cut. Silver surged 3.4% to near $90/oz while First Solar cratered 18% on a brutal guidance miss. S&P 500 +0.81%, Nasdaq +1.26%.
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The Recession Warning With an Asterisk
For over 2 years now, our commentary has made the point that the labor market – more particularly Payroll Employment and the Employment Level household surveys – were the “last man standing” in a sea of negative or weak leading data. For this reason, the NBER coincident models (all 3 of them) were not confirming recession. However the latest Friday BLS downward revisions, on top of countless before them, are becoming the straw that could break the camels’ back. The […]
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MIB: Rebound Day — Meta-AMD Deal Calms AI Fears, Novo Nordisk Enters Price War, & All Eyes Turn to Nvidia
Meta commits up to $100B to AMD GPUs (AMD +9.4%), reversing Monday’s AI selloff. S&P 500 bounced 0.77% from Monday’s “tariff disaster.” Novo Nordisk fell another 3% and announced 50% drug price cuts (dragging LLY -2.2%). PayPal surged 6.74% on Stripe acquisition reports. Bitcoin heading for worst February since 2022 crypto winter. All eyes on Nvidia earnings Wednesday.
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MIB: Sell America — Tariff Chaos & AI Disruption Send S&P Negative for 2026
SCOTUS struck down Trump’s IEEPA tariffs 6-3 — hours later he imposed a new 15% global tariff under Section 122, sending the S&P 500 -1.04% to 6,837 and negative for 2026. IBM cratered 13.0%, its worst day since October 2000, and CrowdStrike fell 11.3% as Anthropic’s AI coding platform upended legacy tech and cybersecurity. Gold hit a new all-time record above $5,164 on a ‘Sell America’ rotation. Fed’s Waller called a March rate cut a ‘coin flip’ as tariff chaos scrambles the inflation outlook. J.P. Morgan raised recession odds to 35%.
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The Great Growth Divergence: What 6 Years of Post-COVID Data Reveals
Almost six years after COVID-19 upended the global economy, a striking pattern has emerged: the world has split into distinct recovery tracks. While India sustained 5.8% annual growth and China posted 4.9%, Germany’s economy has barely budged—growing just 0.03% annually since the fourth quarter of 2019. Finland, once a beacon of Nordic prosperity, has flatlined entirely. An analysis of cumulative real GDP growth across 41 major economies reveals more than just winners and losers. It exposes fundamental shifts in the […]
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